“Don’t touch us.”

My partner experiences street harassment on regular basis no matter the time of the day this evening wasn’t any different. We attended a concert at the 9:30 Club with a group of friends and everything was great until a guy that was pretty intoxicated found his way in front of us. He tried talking to us but when he reached out and touched us both I told him to no longer touch either of us and he didn’t like it. Apparently, me telling someone not to touch my body isn’t my prerogative. Throughout the night he’d intentionally bump into and rub against my partner which was making her uncomfortable so I eventually swapped places with her. Once the guy realized that I was standing there he stopped. The final straw came when he left the show and was walking through the crowd as he walked by he reached his hand out to touch us and we both moved out of his reach. Then he leaped forward and grabbed my partner and tried to take off and one of the friends I’d been with saw him and reacted to it. I was glad the guy was gone but frustrated with the fact that he chose to harass us even after several clear “No, don’t touch us.” After leaving the show to walk my partner home there were obscene comments, whistles and what not from miscellaneous men this happens on a regular basis. The utter lack of respect for other people is jarring to me. The lack of respect for a woman and most certainly the street harrassment [sic] as a same-sex couple has become unbearable.

Submitted on 7/29/12 by Anonymous

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